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Fat Delmon Young’s fat era is off to a fat and annoying start, it seems. He spoke to the media today after taking batting practice for the first time this spring. Ryan Lawrence over at Philly.com has the full transcript, but here are a few highlights:

Long day yesterday?

Young: "I slept on the plane."

You slept on the plane?

Young: "Yes."

How did it feel to be in the cage then finally?

Young: "It’s batting practice. I really don’t care too much to hit on the field."

…

You getting anxious though, watching these games…

Young: "No, not really. It’s cold and it’s only March 6. I’m not anxious at all."

…

So you just went directly from Florida to California, doctor's office to ballpark?

Young's $750,000, one-year contract with the Philadelphia Phillies allows him to earn an additional $2.75 million in bonuses.

The deal for the AL championship series MVP, announced Tuesday, calls for him to get on a scale on six occasions to be chosen by the team. He'll receive $100,000 each time he makes weight, according to details obtained by The Associated Press. The first three times, he must be 230 pounds or less, and the second three, 235 pounds or less.

Amazing. I wonder if, similarly, the servers at PBR have incentives for keeping their muffin tops below a certain threshold. Money for a tribal tat if you maintain an overhang of less than three inches!

Young told reporters on Tuesday: “To lose weight, it’s mostly diet. And it’s eating better. Eating those (sic) strict diet. You can get carried away with clubhouse food, late-night room service [whilst] watching a movie. Some ice cream, some good luck cakes and stuff like that. Going back out in the outfield, you have to stay lighter. DH’ing, you can be BIG.”

Of course, weight clauses are not uncommon in sports. Football players, specifically, have weight and body fat weigh-ins and can be fined for going over or, presumably, under their target weight.

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The Rams and Saints will meet on Sunday afternoon in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome with a trip to Super Bowl 53 on the line. If the rematch possesses the intensity of the first meeting between the two teams, a 45-35 Saints win back in November, then we should be in for quite a game. That leads us to perhaps the most important question ahead of what’s expected to be another high-scoring shootout between two of the

You can analyze trends and probabilities all you like. You can diagnose a match to within an inch of its life. But there are certain things you really can’t account for. Before shutting out an impotent Newcastle United on January 2, Manchester United hadn’t kept a clean sheet in the league in their prior seven matches. The Red Devils went to Wembley last weekend to take on Tottenham Hotspur. Goals aplenty, right? Yeah, no: 11

I imagine Ruben Amaro has spent the winter traveling the Dominican slow-pitch softball circuit, looking for someone – anyone – preferably over the age of 30, who can mash taters, because the Phillies really need some power in their outfield.

As of yet, Rube has come up empty. But there might be someone out there, and he's a Major League player: 27-year-old Delmon Young.

Amaro, who typically keeps matters of free-agency close to his vest, did not deny that.

“We’ve kicked around a lot of stuff,” he said. “He’s among them.”

Young has played with the Rays, Twins and Tigers. He’s a well-rounded player, but has had his share of problems, too. He began the season in the California penal league once threw a bat at an umpire in the minor leagues, and he was arrested last April for yelling anti-Semitic slurs ("Fucking Jews! Fucking Jews!"), while drunk, in New York. MLB suspended him seven days for that incident.

But, he’s 27 and a free agent. And while his numbers are as average as it comes for a corner outfielder – .267 AVG, 18 HR, 74 RBIs, .411 slugging percentage, 112 strikeouts last season with the Tigers – he likely has his most productive years ahead of him.

Amaro told Salisbury that Young’s off-field troubles would cause “reservations," but the Phils will “keep [their] minds open also.” Translation: Juan Carlosdominguez has a full no-trade clause with his Domincan beer league club. So my options are kind of limited, Jim.

The newest Phillie, Michael Young, didn’t have any sort of introductory press conference (they don’t do that for 36-year-olds with one-year remaining on their contract who had to take 48 hours to decide if they even wanted to come here), but he did speak with quasi-sexy MLB.com reporter Emily Jones.

Young said that he’ll continue to live in Texas (no surprise there). He also sounds like Jason Babin, which makes me fight the urge to throw sparkling cider all over my monitor.

Michael Young’s time with the Rangers appears to be over. Industry sources are indicating that the trade could go down today with Young accepting a move to the Phillies. Young is the Rangers all-time leader in multiple categories but he is headed for Philadelphia.

This feels a lot like the Roy Oswalt trade, with the Phillies waiting for a Texas Ranger (UPDATE: Obviously, from Texas– Oswalt was an Astro) to decide if he wants to come to the East Coast.

Young has one year remaining on his deal that will pay him $16 million. It has been reported that the Rangers will pick up a substantial portion of his contract.

We’ll update the post when we can.

UPDATE: The deal is done. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that Young agreed to the deal after receiving $1.2 million in benefits and getting a full no-trade clause from the Phils, which he already had as part of his original contract. He also reportedly told the Phillies he does not want an extension beyond 2013, meaning that he views this as a one-year rental so he can continue to be a starter. The $1.2 million is reportedly to offset tax differences. The Rangers will pay about $10 million of his salary. They will receive Josh Lindblom and Lisalverto Bonilla from the Phillies.

According to severalreports, the Phillies are in advanced stages of talks that would send Young to Philadelphia: [CSN Philly]

The Phillies entered the final morning of the winter meetings Thursday with a legitimate trade possibility. Multiple baseball sources tell CSNPhilly.com that the Phils are in serious discussions with the Texas Rangers about a deal for veteran infielder Michael Young. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning Newsreported that the two teams were in "advanced talks" about Young.

Young has a no-trade clause, but indications are that he would waive it to come to Philly. He has one year and $16 million left on his deal.

At the meetings’ outset Monday, sources indicated the Rangers, who have explored trading Young after both the 2008 and 2010 seasons, had approached the Phillies and another team about a Young deal even before clubs descended upon the Gaylord Opryland.

It seems like the Phillies have been trying to acquire Young for four years. He’s an upgrade of the huge hole they have at third base, but he’s not young.

No longer an All-Star, Young batted .277 with eight home runs and 67 RBIs last season. He had a low on-base percentage of .312 and an OPS of .682, the lowest of his career and an almost 100-point drop from the previous decade.

Rube loves him some old white guys this time of year, and I’m not talking about Santa. The Phillies need to get younger, or add a superstar (Hamilton), or address their needs in the outfield, before we should get excited about Michael Young. That said, he’s better than what they got and he’s durable.

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Thanks to reader Adam, who once pooped out a Phillies logo that he claimed was solely the work of nature and not, say, a shish-kabob stick, for passing this along: One NBA scout wrote a Sixers preview for Sports Illustrated and, surprise!, he doesn’t think much of your Philadelphia 76ers. And this is all assuming Bynum is healthy!

Let’s delve:

I think they're worse than they were last year. At the same time, I understand why they traded Andre Iguodala's contract to get Andrew Bynum [who has missed the entire preseason with knee pain]. They'd gone as far as they could playing to the style they played last year.

Now that they've rebuilt the team around Bynum at center, they're going to need to have the floor spread out with guys who have to be guarded so that you won't be able to double on Bynum. The Magic got to the NBA Finals [in 2009] behind a young low-post center in Dwight Howard, but they did it with three great shooters around him. To do it in today's NBA, you have to have three guys on the perimeter to keep help defenders away from the post and put pressure on the defense. Here's what the 76ers have: Dorell Wright can shoot threes, Nick Young can, Jason Richardson can and Jrue Holiday sometimes can. But they're missing a stretch 4 or another guy who can stop you from doubling Bynum and turning him into a passer.

Basically, the Bynum trade was a good one (agreed). But that doesn’t mean the Sixers got any better. There’s not enough legitimate talent around Bynum, especially at the power forward position, to prevent teams from double teaming Afroman.

There was more.

Bynum's health and maturity would be my two big concerns if I were building my franchise around him. You're teased by the fact that he's 24 and has played on great teams, but he has never been the focal point. He's definitely one of the best young centers, but his maturity level at times makes you wonder if you'd want to make that move to depend on him. He has great size, he scores around the basket, he has a decent shot from 15 feet and he will rebound. He can affect the game defensively, but I think you can get him in foul trouble and attack him.

He wants to be the focal point and that's what the 76ers want him to be. But I don't think he's ready for it mentally. He's going to realize that those guys in L.A. made his life a lot easier because he was the third guy on the Lakers you had to worry about. The defenses he faces will be a lot tougher. You have more defensive-minded coaches and teams in the East. Bynum has never faced as many double teams as he'll see this season, and right now he's nothing more than an adequate passer out of the post. When he caught the ball in L.A., it was like he realized if I don't shoot it I'm not going to touch it again for a while. So the decisions he faced with the Lakers were a lot easier than the decisions he'll have to make with the ball in Philadelphia.

Those are absolutely the Sixers’ biggest concerns– Bynum’s health and maturity. The unnamed scout went on to compliment most of the rest of the team (more on that in a second), but all those things won't matter if there isn’t a healthy, effective Bynum.

One guy who did not receive a compliment was Swaggy P, Nick Young. Here’s what the scout wrote:

I am not a believer in Nick Young. He jacks up bad shots, and he's all about Nick Young. He will tease you. That said, he's important for them because they need him to score. So he needs to be a consistent player and a three-point threat.

About that perceived scoring thing… recently, Deadspin has been running an “NBA Shit List,” in which they call out players who, basically, suck. Young received his own entry. A highlight: